TRAVEL BLOG: Naked Festival

01Mar

Hello again, readers and yes, you read right. Before you get too excited, let me explain: This festival is a Shinto (one of Japan’s two official religion, the other being Buddhism) festival. According to Wikipedia, the festival deals with purification by means of the removal of clothing. That being said, I had never even heard of this event until the day when everyone wanted to go. I was invited by a friend and, thinking what most people who are reading this are thinking, decided to go along for this potentially bizarre and hilarious event. I blame myself for not even doing so much as a Google search beforehand, as I was a bit disappointed by what occurred. Let me ask you this: would you go to the Naked Bike ride if you knew everyone would be in their underwear? Of course not! That’s part of the fun. But aside from that, it was pretty amusing to see a giant hoard of loincloth-wearing men shouting “Washoi!” (I can’t seem to translate this word, but the closest that I can get is ‘Fantastic’”. Basically, what happened was a bunch of these men ran around the area we were in and just shouted “Washoi” over and over. Not at all what I expected, and certainly a little more than misleading, given the name of the festival. I apologize for this blog being fairly uneventful, but this week’s blog didn’t really turn out the way I planned. That and you all deserve an honest blogger. Having said that last part, I realize that the first initial blogs seem a bit boring, so I’m going to try to wow you with future blogs. Next week will be my take on the city of Nagoya, since for some reason I completely overlooked describing the place where I am studying. Don’t worry, I’ll make this next one really good! Don’t miss it!